News Briefs, part 1

Visa Program Due to Expire, Threatening to Strand Visitors

The Washington PostWASHINGTON

An international travel provision that has eased the passage of more
than 9 million tourists and business travelers a year into the United
States by waiving visa requirements is due to expire Friday, threatening to
leave thousands of visitors stranded.

The visa waiver program - which is open to 20 countries in Western
Europe as well as Japan and New Zealand, with reciprocal waivers for
Americans going to those countries - has been used by more than 31 million
people since it was started eight years ago.

Without the provision, which has saved the government staffing and
administrative costs, the result at international airports is "going to be
a huge mess" according to a State Department spokesman.

Despite overwhelming congressional support for an extension, it is part
of a larger bill called the Technical Corrections Act that has been stalled
in the Senate by a number of amendments. Sen. Hank Brown, R-Colo.,
introduced measures that would allow the president of Taiwan a visa to
visit the United States and open up trade in defense and telecommunications
technology with newly democratic Eastern European countries.

Panel to Make Recommendations On Controversial Fetal Tests

The Washington PostWASHINGTON

A government advisory panel is scheduled to announce recommendations
Tuesday on what kinds of federally funded experimentation should be
permitted on human embryos, including the controversial question of whether
scientists should be allowed to create some test-tube embryos solely for
the purpose of research.

Balancing potential scientific benefits and ethical considerations has
been a delicate process for the 19 members of the Human Embryo Research
Panel of the National Institutes of Health. Sources who have seen the
panel's report said it will recommend that the government pay for some
kinds of embryo research - including allowing the creation of human embryos
for research purposes - while expressly rejecting others such as the
creation of chimeras, or human-animal hybrids.

Whatever the panel's conclusions, the recommendations are likely to
deepen a bitter ideological dispute. Many scientists maintain that overly
restrictive guidelines on embryo research would prevent important
discoveries in the study of in vitro fertilization, birth defects,
infertility and cancer.

VA Treatment for Gulf War Families Wins Approval from Senate Panel

The Washington PostWASHINGTON

The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, attempting to resolve an impasse
over compensation for ailing military personnel who served in the Persian
Gulf war, has approved legislation allowing veterans' dependents to receive
free medical examinations at veterans hospitals. The Senate panel added the
provision to legislation that reaffirms the committee's position that the
Department of Veterans Affairs can compensate gulf veterans without
additional legislation. The Clinton administration opposes the measure.

Another provision in the Senate bill would allow the administration to
cut only 10,000 people from the VA's payroll in the next five years - not
the 27,000 that Clinton had proposed. The House has rejected any cuts to VA
health care personnel.

The dependents' provision is unprecedented and certain to be
controversial.

Veterans groups historically have resisted any proposal that would allow
non-veterans to receive treatment in VA-run facilities.

Opposition by veterans groups killed a small Bush administration pilot
program to treat the rural poor at two VA hospitals. The veterans lobby has
complained to Congress that such programs would undermine the government's
commitment to veterans.